


The Crew

by jico448



Series: The Vendida [1]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bandits & Outlaws, Inspired by Music, Music, Musicians, Outer Space, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-08 01:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10374549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jico448/pseuds/jico448
Summary: Let's see where this goes.





	1. The Bookworms

**Author's Note:**

> Let's see where this goes.

Space looked pretty today.

 

It always looked pretty, it seemed. The stars were like endless glitter in the void. But the glitter burned like hell itself, and the void greedily consumed everything it could. Life and light alike.

 

But as Bonny looked out at the cosmos, a scaly, three fingered hand crept from behind her in a soft embrace. The Kig-Yar that the hand belonged to brough his snout close to Bonny’s ear and whispered as softly as a T'vaoan could, “How long have you been sailing the stars?”

 

Bonny answer the rhetorical question, “Since we were little”.

 

“Then why do you continue to stare?”

 

Bonny giggled as she gave a short glance back at Read before looking back out the strong pane of glass that let all the nothing in, “It never gets old, I guess”.

 

They continued to stare at the stars. Their room was small, but cozy. It’s walls still held the dull gray metallic look the rest of the ship had, only this room was decorated with scrawlings of passages. There was only room enough for the king sized bed they shared and a small shelf that was only a little taller than the bed. The shelf was filled with little knick knacks that held books upright. It was quite peculiar to have books, since computerization was second nature to most. But both Bonny and Read had grown accustomed to the feel of books. Read especially, with his radically enhanced sense of smell. The smell was what sold books to Read. But what got Bonny was the touch. It felt more real than words on a computer. A parade of pixels or a orchestration of light that danced and sung the words of a novel seemed finite compared to the printed ink of a book.

 

Bonny wore only a loose pair of sweatpants as she lay under the three comforters on the bed. The blankets covered her up to her neck in a warm embrace that was overshadowed by Read’s. Read, opposed to Bonny, only covered his torso with a large gray t-shirt. His legs made it impossible for him share any kind of pants with Bonny, with them having two knees each, making his legs a zig zagged shape. He had pants that he could wear, but they were all being washed by Gared.

 

Boony repositioned herself in Read’s embrace. She could feel his avion fingers comb through her curly red hair. Bonny turned over onto her other side, still wrapped in Read’s arms, and began to feel the feathers that adorned his head. Their foreign feel still, after all the years they had known each other, never failed to excite her. The quills ran softly against her fingers as she whispered into his ear, “And neither do you”.

 

They both giggled into each other's ears softly. Their moment of blissful love was interrupted. A low voice echoed an old melody from the hallways.

 

_ In my eyes, indisposed _

_ In disguises no one knows _

_ Hides the face, lies the snake _

_ The sun in my disgrace _

_ Boiling heat, summer stench _

_ 'Neath the black the sky looks dead _

_ Call my name through the cream _

_ And I'll hear you scream again _

 

Bonny and Read continued to lay wrapped up in the blankets and each other as they listened to their friend sing on. Read had the song on the ship’s database. The melody was etched into his head like it was his childhood. But hearing Xuda’s talented voice ringing through the corridors of the S.S.Vendida was something different. It felt more real that calculated sound waves from a computer. Both Bonny and Read basked in the real world like null in the void. It seemed to them that it was where they belonged.

 

When Xuda let the last note of the old song fall, Read said to Bonny, “The rooster beckons us to-day”.


	2. The Cook and the Cleaner

Gared quickly picked up the burning pan of bell peppers. The large hairy jiralhanae had lost himself in Xuda’s singing once again. Gared tilted his ape-like head down and looked forlornly down at the charred peppers he was so looking forward to feeding to his friends. He begrudgingly tilted the pan over the garbage can, letting the black vegetable fall into its domain.

 

The kitchen was round and plain looking, its three walls sharing the same gray metallic color as the rest of the ship. It merged into the lounge on one side, separated by only a small railing that prevented anyone from falling into the lounge that lay four feet below the kitchen. A large portion of metal fencing hung ten feet from the ground where a number of pots and pans dangled helplessly from. This made Gared and Xuda the only ones who could use the kitchen. 

 

But as Gared fetched another vegetable to cook, a small unggoy waddled into the kitchen holding his rebreather to his mouth. His arms were four times the size of their joints, giving the unggoy a quaint look. His head only reached to Gared’s waist, making it so that the unggoy had to look up at the great ape-like beast. He pulled it away quickly to speak, “Did you start a fire or something?”

 

“No! I just burned out lunch a little”.

 

Midip sighed to himself. Gared was a sweet thing, to be sure, but useless all the same. His only use on the ship seemed to be a source of moral. He was strong in body, but weak in mind. Midip could tell something was holding him back from becoming the killing machines that all jiralhanae seemed to be. He was like one of those machines that humans used to use to detect earthquakes from miles away, and Midip didn’t want to set him off.

 

Gared could see the disappointment in Midip’s face, no matter how small it seemed. But it had little effect on gared, for he had gotten used to the look of disappointment on other’s faces like a blind man might get used to lack of sight. 

 

Midip soon felt out of place, and then continued on towards his room.


	3. The Musician

“Is it good now?” Xuda said as he fiddled with the sound system in the recording room.

 

Read gave a thumbs up and went back out the door. The room used to be an interrogation room before Bonny and Read had owned it. Now it was Xuda’s makeshift recording studio. This might have been the only room in the entire ship that was not pledged with the sickly grey scheme the rest of the ship shared. He had painted the room with various splashes of color. He was worried about being to loud and bought insulation, but the room was already built sound proof.

 

He sat on a stool in the middle of the room loosely holding his brown acoustic guitar. His body was similar to Read’s in the fact that they both only had three fingers on each hand and both had the same zigged zagged legs. Xuda sat in the room stark naked, wearing only a pair of headphones to listen to the recording. His black leathery skin was exposed for the any who lie just beyond the one-sided mirror. He didn’t have much to were being as big as he was. Gared was about the same size as Xuda, but had the advantage of having a natural coat. Xuda, after many months of traveling with the crew, still had not found anything that fit him. Most species his size either did not wear clothes, or wore armor.

 

He loved to make music. While the others made their living off stealing from others, Xuda was a self-published musician. He might have been the only one of his species. He knew the nature of the sangheili. He was still a proud warrior and an excellent fighter, But he did not live for the fight like many of his ancestors did. He lived for music. He was very sensitive about his passion, but never showed it. For a sangheili to be so devoted to an art without being ordained was something of an embarrassment. Although Xuda rarely agreed with the traditions of his people, he still couldn't help but feel a tiny pang of cringe whenever it came to showing his passion to others. Bonny, Read, Midip, and Gared were the only ones with whom he could comfortably play in front of, and sometimes, even with. He had a plethora of instruments to play in the room, but only knew how to play three.

 

The first thing he ever learned to play was the guitar. His father gave it to him as a little child when they still lived on sanghelios. How he had come to possess it was still a mystery to Xuda to this day. He has played and plucked at the instrument for five years until he could form melodies at will.

 

He had learned all he ever needed to know about music from experimenting with the guitar for ten years. By the time he joined up with Bonny and her gang, he had mastered the guitar. But as they traveled, Xuda came to know more instruments. He had accumulated a hefty collection of musical instruments from around the galaxy in a matter of months. He had an entire room filled with a random assortment of instruments he had no idea how to play.

 

He began with the biggest one he could use. The grand piano. It only took him a month to learn the piano after he correlated the notes from his guitar and the ones on the piano. Shortly after mastering the piano, Xuda found an old human book among his many instruments. It was written in English, which may have been his second language, but was the one he used the most when traveling the galaxy. He ignored all the parts about posture and form, only reading what he needed in order to play the sheets of music that came with the book. Xuda was crushed to learn that he could not play most of the songs the sheets told of. Almost all of the songs required ten fingers to play, and he only had eight. There were still some songs he could play, and he could make his own, but his inability to fully control the instrument would forever haunt him.

 

After the emotional rollercoaster that was learning the grand piano, Xuda decided that he wanted to learn an instrument that he had full ability to play. He chose the trumpet as his next instrument. He found out very quickly that even though he had enough fingers to play the instrument, he was still missing a required part of the anatomy. A pair of lips. Four independent jaws were all he had in the mouth department. But, still driven to play this instrument to its full potential, Xuda instead put the end to the beginning of his esophagus. If felt weird and abnormal, but it worked. After practicing for a months it felt as natural as playing any other instrument.

 

He taught Bonny and Read how to play guitar, but Read was more interested in the drums. Xuda did not consider the drums an instrument, but a timekeeping tool. Read would hammer away with rapid speed at each drum in the set. Bonny preferred to play a bass guitar as opposed to Xuda’s acoustic guitar. Midip was too small to handle any of the instruments, standing only 4 feet tall, and had no interest in doing so either. And Xuda could not get Gared to play any instrument with any sort of grace.

 

But sometimes, Xuda would not make music in the recording room, but would listen to it. Most of the music he listened to was human made. He had taken an interest in music back when he was a little child living on sanghelios. Only his father ever threw embers into the dim flames of passion that burned inside young Xuda. He was shown singings and hymns of the religious gatherings praising the forerunners. But those melodies were just about prising a long dead species that only offered leftover technology. At the time is seemed absurd, but then Bonny told of old human religions, and then it didn't seem so bad.

 

But what the humans did in religion, they more than made up for in music. They made some religious songs, but they were diluted in the sea of beautiful music. Humans would make their music not for a god, but an idea. A feeling. Something you could only glean from the melody one could get out of an instrument. It felt like a whole other language.

 

He could hord a much more cumbersome collection of music due to most music being digital. But he did have a laserdisc that held some remnants of the past. They were rare antiques in which only historians were interested. And among those historians, even fewer knew of its predecessor. The vinyl. Most people wouldn't even know one if they saw it, but Xuda treasured them. He had only 18 in his possession, and the whole crew knew that Xuda would pay a hefty price for one, so they always had an eye out for any that showed up.

 

But right now he was learning to play a song out of many he had in his collection. All the songs he had on the ship's database had a total length of 28 billion years. He could not hope to listen to all of them even if he wanted to. He would try and listen to the ones that were most popular.

 

The song he was trying to play now was very old and emotional. It spoke to him words of reality, of naturality. The song told others to be real and honest, and not deceptive and untruthful. Even centuries later, and thousands of light years away, people still suffered from the same problems.


	4. The Mid-Class

Midip opened the door to the ship hangar as Bonny and Read walked into the lounge that opened up into the kitchen. Midip looked into the large empty hanger before walking in. It was originally built to house over 20 patrol ships, but only housed a single UNSC pelican. It was old and busted when they found it, but Midip had repaired it back to functioning state. He had planned to make other improvements, but could never get his hands on any of the parts he needed, and he was always repairing the damned thing from more damage is sustained from being used, or even just sitting in the hangar bay. The hanger bay was used mostly for storage. The ship had a storage level, but is was locked, and the key didn't come with the ship. It required a key-card no one could replicate without the original, and the key slot was made out of the same infallible material that the door was made of. No one could get in, and no one wanted to risk wrecking the ship in order blast it open. Rows of shelves that reached 20 feet in the air lined the whole bay like an old supermarket. There was no organization, making a simple eren to retrieve a small component more like finding a needle in a haystack.

 

For example, a component was needed to fix the gravitational stabilizer for the ship but was lost when Read took one turn a little to hard. The ship still had gravity, but every shift in momentum could be felt in full force throughout the whole ship, as it did not usually. Every single piece of loot that had been stored in the bay had been knocked over and spilled to the ground, along with some of the shelves. In that spur of chaos, a locked ammo crate full of grenades had somehow gone off next to the ship in the bay. It would have had no effect on the ship had it’s passive shield been enabled.

 

And now they were broken. A ship with no shields was useless to them. They could still fly through space, but could not go into the orbit of any planet worth going to without burning alive. And people would definitely ask questions if an entire stolen police freighter piloted by wanted criminals broke orbit.

 

So, they were stuck in space in a ship that could barely maneuver, a bridge between spaceships, and a huge mess that nobody wanted to clean up. Right now, Bonny was the only one allowed to pilot the freighter without causing an earthquake through the freighter. Since Bonny and Read grew up together, Read was just as capable as Bonny at piloting, but no one wanted him anywhere near the cockpit after the mess he had made.

 

That whole incident with the gravitational stabilizers had happened four days ago. Midip had been doing nothing but shifting through the piles of loot strewn around the bay in order to find the components he needed to fix the stabilizers.


	5. Nightmares

Read and Bonny sat across from Gared in the lounge eating fried rice. Read had drowned his in soy sauce and was greedily scarfing down his meal. Bonny asked Read in between bites, “God… Why the hell do you need so much sauce in that?”

 

“Because, It reminds me of the sea from your home planet”.

 

“Earth is not our home. You know that. And how do you know what the sea tastes like? You didn’t drink it when we were there, did you?”

 

“I only had a sip. And it was two months ago. I feel fine now”.

 

“Well… Ok. But that stuff can seriously make you sick”.

 

“But how? Don’t you need water to live?”

 

“Yeah, but sea water has too much salt in it to do you any good if you drink it”.

 

“But… That's like the whole planet. It’s just a big body of water. And it can make you ill?”

 

“Yeah. It can even kill if you drink enough of it”.

 

“But, water is like a source of life for you. So it’s like poisoned life?”

 

“Yes”

 

Gared adopted a sad look in his eyes, “That’s so sad”.

 

Read added, “Yeah, your home planet’s pretty depressing”.

 

“It is, which is why I’m glad it’s not my home.

 

“But it is your home planet”.

 

Bonny finished a gulp of her drink, “But why though? Can’t we just leave Venezia our home?”

 

Gared nodded, “I agree”.

 

Read was now exchanging glances with both Bonny and Gared, feeling like he was in the middle of a conversational pincer attack, “No no no… Earth to you is what Eayn is to me. I mean Xuda would agree with me”.

 

Everyone in the lounge looked around to see that Xuda was nowhere to be found. Read set down his plate, “He must still be recording”. With that he got up and headed down the hallway behind him.

 

That left only Gared and Bonny in the lounge. Gared was sitting with his back to the kitchen, and Bonny with here's to the hallway Read was now walking down. Each now had an entire couch to themselves. They both continue to eat in silence.

 

Read walked back down the hallway to go get Xuda. He was a bit of a recluse compared to the rest of the crew. He was the odd one out. Read and Bonny did all they could to include Xuda in anything they could. Midip didn’t show any interest in Xuda’s happiness, and Gared was too shy to instigate anything.

 

Read got to the door of the recording room. He looked to the other side of the hall to see the storage room door. The door hunted him. When Bonny had found the ship, she had took off the instant she could. Granted, they were being chased by what seemed like an army of police ships, but if they had stayed on the planet long enough to discover the locked door, they could have blown it off. But now they were stuck in space with no safe way of landing or getting the door open.

 

Read entered the recording room after giving an experimental jostl to the storage room door. He stood in the middle of the viewing side looking at Xuda strum away at his guitar through the one way looking glass. He looked so at peace inside the little room strewn with wires and soundboards. The sight was almost breathtaking. Read almost didn't want to disturb Xuda at all. He had already interrupted Xuda once this morning. He didn't want to do it again.

 

No. Xuda could sometimes come off as cold or insincere, but Read knew that it was just the way he was raised. And Gared would surely appreciate Xuda’s company. Read started by knocking on the glass. A minute passed of Xuda continuing to rhythmically play his guitar. The intercom wouldn't work, since they had turned it off this morning.When it was apparent that Xuda had not heard the knock, Read opened the door to the main recording room.

 

Xuda jumped off the stool he had been sitting on in surprise as Read stood still at the door. Xuda had a hand to his chest where his hearts beat rapidly inside.

 

Read awkwardly started, “Gared made rice”.

 

Xuda replied, “Okay”.

 

After that, Read slowly withdrew from the room. Xuda felt weak. Pride and freedom pulled at his chest at what just happened. You just got frightened, Xuda thought to himself. It happens to everyone.

 

But not to sangheili, Xuda countered. We are to be fearless in the face of danger, and here you are, frightened like a child in the dark by a simple kig-yar.

 

That ‘kig-yar’ is my friend.

 

Then why cower from a comrade? If you two could even be.

 

“Stop”

 

You know how the ones closest to you always end up.

 

“I SAID SHUT UP!”

 

Read had been waiting in the observation room for Xuda to follow, but rushed in quickly at the sudden outburst. Read asked cautiously, “Hey, you okay?”

 

Xuda loosened his grip on the guitar, “Yeah. I- Just don’t surprise me like that”.

 

Read still held worry in his eyes, “Okay”.

 

With that he slipped out of the doorframe, and Xuda followed.

 

As they walked down the hallway, Read asked, “Hey, I’m here. We all are. We always have been when you needed us”.

 

Xuda wanted to let his gaze fall, but did not for fear of catching Read’s. He stared up at the ceiling and pondered the voice in his head. He knew the voice that haunted him was not real, but it’s inspirations were.  

 

Read looked up to Xuda and saw the tension on his face. He didn’t think of himself as a leader, but he did feel a responsibility for people that flew in the ship with him, regardless of whether he was rightly responsible for them or not.

 

So in an attempt to put Xuda at eae, he broke the ice, “So… Where’d you learn to play?”

 

And after that, one look from Xude had told Read that he had asked the wrong question, despite his curiosity.

 

Reas was quick to the apology, “I’m sorry, -”

 

“Don’t be.” Xuda replied, “My burdens are not yours to bare.”

 

Read only replied with a friendly nod, then continued on down the hallway.


	6. The Crew

The motherboard lit up like a Christmas tree. Midip was now certain he had fixed it this time. He removed his small battery pack and plugged in the auxiliary power. Fans roared to life as the system began checking itself. So far he had fixed everything with the gravity panels, but now he had fixed the system running the whole thing.

 

Soon the panels began to whirr to life as Midip felt pressure from all around. The room began to feel less like a boat and more like stable ground. Midip hopped with glee at the working system. And he had done it all by himself. While Bonny and Read fucked to their hearts content, Gared burned every ounce of sustenance on the ship, and Xuda basked in the melancholy of dead musicians, Midip alone fixed the fuckup of the crew, as he always did.

 

Midip took a long huff of methane from his rebreather only to get small does of the gas. He would have to fill it up again back at his room. He walked back out of the hanger past mounds of loot and into the kitchen where he could see everyone else enjoying rice in the lounge.

 

Read looked up at Midip before swallowing his mouthful of food, “Hey Midip. Where’ve you been?”

 

“Fixing gravity”.

 

Bonny looked up to Midip, “I didn't notice anything odd about the gravity”. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

 

Midip replied, “No, not that gravity. The stabilizers.” Everyone only gave Midip looks of confusion. “I fixed the ship and now we can fly normally”.

 

With that, everyone gave a yippee at the news, and went right back to eating. Midip began walking to his room and had got to the hallway entrance behind Bonny and Read before Gared stopped him, “Hey Midip, where’re you going? I made some for all of us”.

 

Midip replied, “I just need to refill my methane”.

 

Gared countered, “Come on. There’s enough in there for a quick meal”.

 

Midip wanted to argue, but was awfully tired. He was feeling hungry after single handedly fixing the whole ship. What did any of them do? Why did they get to eat and he gets the leftovers?

 

Midip sat next to Bonny after getting a plate of rice. As he ate, Read asked Xuda, “What was that you were playing earlier?”

 

“A song about black holes”.

 

Gared imputed, “I thought it was about life and death”.

 

Bonny added, “Well it could mean whatever you think it means”.

 

They continue the conversation as their fully functioning ship drifted through space. Lifetimes of adventures lie ahead for the crew. No matter which way they drifted, they always did so closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a lot of ideas for this little group of people, but too many projects on the back burner. I hope to take this far, if I ever get around to it.


End file.
